In our current massively multiplayer online gaming space, emotions are often subdued, only emerging when players achieve victory in an intensely difficult raid or facing certain death in a Leeroy Jenkins-sque group wipe. However, they do exist in these games, and this was the topic discussed in Nicole Lazzaro's presentation on the "Four Most Important Emotions of Game Design" where she presented the key "emotions" necessary to create an award-winning, revenue-generating game. Throughout the rest of this article, we'll discuss the four "emotions" she covered in her lecture and what MMO developers could or should do to integrate these emotions into their titles.

While Lazzaro does want more emotions in games, she's wary about taking the interactivity away from the gamer. Cut-scenes and theatrical visions are not her idea of "emotional" gameplay development, and she's more focused on designing games that are original and fun-to-play. Some of her most pertinent examples were videos of Wii players, where the players interact with each other and the game as well.